


look after me

by hyucklees



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Donghyuck is so hot tbh, Homophobia, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Queer Themes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-02-22 21:01:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13175127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyucklees/pseuds/hyucklees
Summary: Mark Lee has absolutely no idea what to do, but he's open to suggestions.**working on bringing this fic back from hiatus, please be patient!**





	1. edge of town - middle kids

There was a silence at the dinner table that made Mark sick to his stomach. They didn’t often eat together at all unless it was a holiday, but his father had specifically requested that they have dinner at the table tonight. Mark could feel the topic of conversation looming in the air, but he wouldn’t dare say the first word.

“Minhyung,” his father finally spoke, catching Mark in the middle of a bite. “Your mother and I need to talk to you about something that happened yesterday.”

Mark glanced at his step-mother out of the corner of his eye. She had a smirk on her face that made Mark’s vision turn crimson. She was not his mother, but he held his tongue to save himself from his father’s potential wrath. And she called him Minhyung. From the day he was born, his mother always called him Mark, never his birth name. But Stephanie insisted what a beautiful name it was when she met him for the first time and threw Mark completely out of the conversation. His father soon picked up on it as well, and soon he was only Mark to the teachers he could convince at school and in his own memories. Mark knew they didn’t want him to be there. They wanted a perfect son, Minhyung, someone that Mark could never be.

“When Stephanie came home yesterday morning, she said that she came to see you in your room and she saw something that is very out of character for you.”

Mark shifted uncomfortably in his chair, staring down at his still full plate. This was the beginning of the end. He had spent years sneaking around their work schedules and keeping his life quiet when they were around, but Stephanie’s change in plans yesterday morning may as well have been a death sentence for him.

“There was a boy here,” Stephanie spoke up, too loud for the quiet room. “He was in bed with Minhyung. I just couldn’t believe it. Our Minhyung would never do such a terrible thing.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Mark mumbled, pushing his chair back away from the table with his feet. He had no defence against the both of them besides lying, and there was no point in doing that.

“We can help you through this, Minhyung,” his father said, reaching out to take Stephanie’s hand. “Stephanie has recommended that we find a therapist that can help make you-- well, get you back on the right path. I know you’re young and you think you know who you are, but you have no reason to do these disgusting things when there’s plenty of nice girls out there waiting for you.”

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” Mark said, grabbing their attention. He usually wasn’t one to speak up in conversations with his father, only nodding his head and going along. He looked up at the two of them and realized that he had their attention for maybe the first time since he moved here. “There’s nothing wrong with me,” he said again. “I don’t need to be fixed.”

Mark stood up from the table without telling his legs to do so, moving towards the stairs to his room. Stephanie scoffed and pushed her plate away from the edge of the table, acting disgusted at the scene before her. Mark’s father stood up, fuming, and followed his son towards the stairs. He grabbed Mark tightly by the arm and tugged him back.

“You will not live in sin under my roof, young man, do you understand me?”

Mark ripped his arm aggressively away from his father’s grip. There was a thick silence in the air that was loaded with things that Mark was dying to say.

“What are you going to do? Kick me out on the streets? You would leave your own son out to fend for himself just because I’m gay?” Mark spoke quickly as tears pooled at the corner of eyes. In the moment he was furious but he could feel his heart breaking as his mind answered his own questions.

His father stared back at Mark with no expression; his eyes lacked empathy. “A gay man is no son of mine.”

Mark moved towards to the stairs to his room, but the eyes on his back made him stop in his tracks. “And what about Mom?” He turned around to face his father again, this time with a fire that wasn’t there before.

“When I was little, Mom promised that she would love me through anything. She swore. Do you think this is what Mom would have wanted for us? For you to marry someone who doesn’t love either one of us and for you to tear our family apart just because I’m not the son you wanted?” The tears came from Mark’s eyes when he stopped fighting them back; his eyes turned red and his hands shook where they rested at this sides.

His father stood still for a moment, chest heaving with angry breaths. Mark stepped forward, a confident energy pushing him closer against his better judgement. Mark didn’t want a fight, but his body refused to back down and submit to his father again. He stood staring at his father’s face and tried to read his expression through the tears. And just as Mark blinked, he felt a painful crack in his cheek followed by the feeling of his opposite temple knocking against the tile. Mark feared the worst; he had never seen his father hurt someone but he had seen how far the man’s temper could go. Mark couldn’t stop himself from sobbing from his place on the floor. His father loomed over Mark’s body as it curled up protectively over his stomach.

“You have five minutes. Never step foot in my house again or you won’t be leaving alive.”

Mark scrambled up the stairs, scouring for a backpack and anything that he could think to take with him. It took him no less that two minutes to get out the door, hearing the faint chuckle of his father as he slammed the door behind him. His stomach lurched as he stepped off of the front porch of a home that was never his. He heaved into the front bushes and came up with nothing but saliva and the air in his stomach while his dinner sat cold on the table. The summer wind felt freezing cold in that moment and his temples thumped along to the beat of his heart. His vision refocused and when he glanced down, his watch read that it was 9:09 PM. He turned towards the road and began to walk, knowing that his only choice was to keep going until he found a place to stop.

Walking along the road on a Saturday night can feel like a movie if the situation feels right and if the summer breeze hits you just right, but in Mark’s reality, all he could think of was what would happen if he took just a few steps closer to the median. Without anywhere to go or anyone to fall back on, Mark felt like he may not have much to lose. He thought about his mom and he wondered what she would think of him right now, taking a step over the white line. A Honda Civic drove a little bit too close to his shoulder blaring its horn and he felt the air push him back towards the grass. He knew the world wouldn’t let him die just yet, not when tonight was already going so well.

About 30 minutes from his house (on foot) was a small shopping complex with most of its lights turned off for the night. Things closed early around this town, not like in the city where Mark had grown up. Kids around here were forced to find something to do past 9 and it never led to anything good. Mark had seen kids do dumb things around here, kids he went to school with, drinking in parking lots and throwing rocks at windows just to hear the shattering noise. This was the summer after his senior year, though, and he’d spent the last two weeks of school distancing himself from all of those guys that had no plans but to grow up and die in this same old town that they were born in. His last connection to this town was run out the door on Friday morning wearing Mark’s clothes with his hair all stuck to his head from the heat. The only store with its neon signs still on was the rundown Waffle House that Mark was sure that no one has ever eaten at. The windows were somehow fogged up despite the June weather, but Mark could see a sign in the window that read OPEN 24 HOURS and he decided to sit down for a while until he could work out where exactly he was going.

The door opened with the sound of a bell and the three workers inside looked up with a look of sincere confusion on their faces. A middle-aged man stood at the grill despite there being no orders to cook and two servers wiped down tables to get the leftover dust off of them. One was an older woman who carried a cloud of cigarette smoke around with her, and the other was a boy that Mark had gone to school with but had never spoken a word to. His name was on the tip of Mark’s tongue, but he didn’t exactly remember it at the moment and wasn’t about to attempt to call out for the boy he only barely recognized.

Mark pushed himself into the corner booth as close to the walls as possible. He hoped that if he shrunk far enough back that maybe he would begin to blend into the booth and eventually become completely invisible. Judging by the constant glances from the wait staff, his superpowers had yet to kick in. After five minutes of staring down at the speckled gray table and counting the dots, someone cleared their throat as they hovered over him.

“Hi, my name is Donghyuck and I’ll be your server tonight. Can I get you started with something to drink?” The man who stood with a pad of paper sounded like he was trying to be friendly but Mark could hear the worry and slight discomfort in his voice. His voice was soft in a way that matched his sweet features that were currently covered in a look of concern. Mark nodded for a moment, realizing that he most likely had to order something in order to be allowed to stay here, so he scrambled to think of something that a person would order if they willingly chose to come to a Waffle House.

“Yeah, um, coffee? Please? Coffee. Thank you.” Mark hated coffee, but he was truly unsure if Waffle House served anything but subpar coffee and equally subpar waffles. He tapped at the table with his fingers, not keeping a beat but keeping himself occupied. He wasn’t too excited to think about what his plan was, so he instead reached for his phone to distract him.

How long would they keep his phone on? His father paid his phone bill every month, and Mark wouldn’t be surprised to wake up tomorrow with no connection. Waking up tomorrow was another story, as Mark had no idea where he would sleep tonight or if he would be able to sleep at all. There were no hotels for miles and even if there were, Mark had terribly limited funds. He thought about falling asleep here in the booth of a Waffle House and seeing how long it would take them to kick him out. Would they let him stay as long as he gave them a big enough tip? He wasn’t willing to ask and find out while he was still clinging on to the last bits of dignity that he had.

“One coffee for someone who looks like he’s had a rough night already.” Donghyuck said, putting the steaming hot mug down right in front of Mark. Mark smiled up thankfully because he wasn’t quite sure how to reply. “You went to South Lake, right? I think we graduated together.”

“Oh yeah, I think we did.” Mark said, making eye contact with the the swirling steam instead of with the man next to him. “It’s funny how everybody seems to know everybody else in this town.”

“Yeah.” Donghyuck said, then he stopped like he had something more to say. Mark looked up at him and raised an eyebrow, to which Donghyuck sighed. “You’ll have to forgive me, I can’t remember your name for the life of me.”

“Oh, it’s uh-- it’s Mark. Well, Minhyung, actually, but I go by Mark usually.” Mark started to think about how Donghyuck talked like a middle-aged woman while he was serving him and he wondered if that was how he talked all the time. It was charming in a way, but still strange.

“Mark.” Donghyuck swished the name around in his mouth to see if it struck a chord and his eyes lit up with familiarity after a moment. “Mark Lee! Of course, I remember when you moved here.”

“Yeah, I did do that.” Mark laughed nervously into his coffee and he took a sip despite having no desire to do so. It burned his tongue and left a terribly sour taste in his mouth, but he powered through as if that was exactly what he wanted. He wished for nothing more than for Donghyuck to go away, but unfortunately he knew that Donghyuck had nothing else to do but wait on him.

“Well, Mark Lee, are you going to order something to eat? Everything’s made to order.” Donghyuck squatted down to get eye level with Mark and rested his elbows on the table for balance.

“Honestly, I didn’t come here with much of an appetite. Just, you know, needed a place to go for a while. Not that I don’t have a place to go!” Mark stumbled over his own words, trying not to sound as sorry as he felt. “Just, I needed a place to go that wasn’t that place. That other place that I have to go. Just needed to get out for a while. You know. Restless leg syndrome, maybe.”

“Sure,” Donghyuck said, standing back up. “Well, just holler if you need anything, I’ll be over at the counter. Ron makes a real mean steak and eggs if you find you’re in the mood for something to eat.” He stepped backwards with his words, never breaking eye contact as he side-stepped behind the counter nearly to the other side of the diner. He flashed a bright smile and turned around, making Mark feel alone all over again.

Mark didn’t touch his coffee again for another hour as he watched out the window and counted the total of 8 cars that passed by, not a single one of them stopping at the greasy old diner. Mark reached for his coffee instinctively and nearly gagged as it hit his mouth, the same sour taste now only amplified as the drink had long gone cold. He was sure that Donghyuck was watching him when it happened because the waiter shuffled over with a glass of water and an apologetic look on his face when he took the coffee mug off the table. Mark wanted to say thank you, but it didn’t feel quite right, so he nodded quietly instead and looked back out the window.

His mind wandered to what he had said earlier to Donghyuck, It’s funny how everybody seems to know everybody else in this town. He thought about what life was like before sophomore year, when he lived with his mother in the city. There were so many people in such a small place, and yet he had never spoken or even looked at most of them. He lived among so many nameless strangers. Even here, in this town that holds a fraction of his old home, where everyone is supposed to know each other, he felt like a stranger. He knew the names and faces of the people who he walked past, and some may say that it was a step above the strangeness of the city, but Mark still felt as if there was no one he truly knew. Donghyuck had been his classmate for three years in a class of only 100 people and yet Mark had never spoken a word to him until two weeks after graduation. He knew nothing about Donghyuck: what he liked, what his life plans were, his birthday, or even his last name. And he was sure that Donghyuck, and everyone else in this town, knew nothing about him either.

Mark thought about his father and about Stephanie. They clearly didn’t know him. But if they had known him, he would’ve been kicked out long ago. If the rest of this town had known him, they would have done quite a lot to un-know him, surely. He thought about Sicheng, who stayed over on Thursday night only to be rushed out of the house by a very concerned Mark early on Friday morning. Sicheng was the only one who really knew Mark, and he didn’t know Mark very well. He knew that Mark was gay, which was a step towards knowing Mark, but he didn’t know much else which made them nothing but slightly closer strangers. He wondered what his mother would’ve thought, had she known. She knew him more than his father ever did, but he hid a lot from her before she… before everything changed.

“Mark?” Donghyuck said, and Mark snapped back to the real world. The way Donghyuck said his name, it sounded like he had been calling for him for quite a while. Mark made eye contact with Donghyuck, confirming that he was alive, and a smile stretched across the waiter’s face. “Mark, hey,” he said with a laugh, sliding into the booth across from Mark. “It’s nearly midnight, and my shift is about to be over so-- I want you to be honest with me here-- do you have a place to go tonight? And I swear, no judgement, no questions asked, but I’ve spent all night here before and I can promise you that it is not something that you want to do.”

“Oh, I, well…” Mark said, trailing off and answering the question without a yes or a no. Donghyuck nodded, reaching behind his back in the cramped booth to untie his apron.

“Well, then, I want you to come crash at my place tonight.” Donghyuck held up a finger as Mark moved to protest. “I really want you to. I’ve got a bearable second-hand couch that’s practically calling your name and an extra fan in case it gets hot tonight. I would really do anything to get you out of this place for the night.”

Mark took a minute to think about the implications of going home with a strange man that he’s never spoken to before and wonders what the odds are that Donghyuck could be a serial killer. But even so, he can’t think of what else he would do beside sit in this Waffle House until the morning came. What happened in the morning would be a whole new endeavor, but not one he was ready to focus on. So after a moment of silence, he nods at Donghyuck, taking his offer with grateful silence.

“Let me grab something before we leave, and then we’ll head out. Don’t go anywhere.” Donghyuck leaped from the booth with a sort of energy that no one should have at midnight. Mark watched has he shuffled behind the counter and grabbed two offensively yellow to-go cups, filling them up and carrying over to the table, not offering Mark either one.

“Alright, let’s get out of here, I need to take a shower to get the smell of grease off of me.”

Mark snorted and looked up at the man. “Like you guys ever have to serve food.”


	2. no known drink or drug - japandroids

Donghyuck’s car was exactly what Mark expected. The cup holders were full of receipts smushed to the bottom and there was a dent near the left tail light that Mark assumed wasn’t there when Donghyuck bought the car. The interior and the exterior were both a dull gray color that made everything seem like it was about to break. Inside there was a space where the stereo should have been, but instead a bluetooth speaker was shoved into the hole. Mark eyed the speaker and looked at Donghyuck inquisitively to which Donghyuck just shrugged, not bothering to tell the story. He shoved one of the too-large takeout cups into a cupholder and held the other out right in front of Mark’s face.

“Don’t you think you should at least tell me what I’m drinking before you force a straw into my mouth?” Mark said, dodging to the side to avoid the straw poking at his nose. “It could be dishwater for all I know.” 

“If I tell you it’s not dishwater, will you try it?” Donghyuck swirled the cup around in his hand, making the ice splash around inside. “Do you have any major food allergies?”

“Shellfish?” Mark said, taking the cup from Donghyuck’s hand but still hesitating to drink it.

“Well then, no shellfish and no dishwater, plus I brought one for me, too,” Donghyuck said, pulling his own cup out of the sticky cup holder and sipping from it. “I think that’s all the convincing you should need.”

Mark lifted the lid a bit to see what was inside, but the parking lot was dark and besides the fact that it was definitely a liquid, Mark couldn’t tell anything about the drink.

“Oh, would you stop being a pussy and try it?”

Mark choked on his own saliva, his eyes growing wide. There was something about the casual tone in Donghyuck’s voice and the way one of his eyebrows raised in exasperation that caught Mark off guard. He heaved a few more times before looking up with accidental tears welling up in his eyes.

“Donghyuck’s got a mouth on him,” Mark choked out with the last of his coughs. Donghyuck chuckled lowly from the other side of the car, sounding so carefree as a stranger nearly died in his passenger seat. Mark’s throat was suffering from his coughing attack and he reached down for the drink in between his knees to stop him from coughing any more. When he took a drink through the straw, something sour, sweet, and bubbly all at once hit him.

Mark looked at the cup, then at the smug look on Donghyuck’s face and he realized his mouth was hanging open.

“Before you ask, it’s equal parts lemonade and Sprite with cherry syrup. I call it a Toothache.” Donghyuck took a drink of his own Toothache, watching as Mark curiously took another sip and looked even more impressed than the last time.

“Why didn’t you just tell me that before I tried it?” Mark laughed, swirling the cup in his hand.

“If you’re going to stay the night at my house, we need to develop a sense of trust, right?” Donghyuck said, and the car fell into silence.  The engine kicked to life after a moment of Donghyuck fumbling with the keys and the hum of the motor didn’t drown out the sudden and generally unpleasant feeling in the air that neither one of them could put their finger on.

They drove north, Mark thought, because he watched out the window to count cars but they never passed a single one. North of the town was miles and miles of nothing, so he figured that no one would come from that direction. He cleared his throat to say something, only to realize that he hadn’t planned to say anything at all. He could feel Donghyuck listening for him to say something and yet he still sat silently.

“Something on your mind?” Donghyuck asked as he reached for his cup and fumbled around in the dark until he found it. 

Mark hesitated, not sure how to say that there was more than a couple things on his mind. “You said, like, no questions asked, right?” He was met with what looked like a reassuring nod in the dark. “I just feel like I should give you a little bit of context if you’re just going to have me in your house. Plus, I feel like I have to trust you more after that whole drink thing.”

Donghyuck chuckled and turned from the road for a moment, glancing at Mark but not seeing any humor in his face. He nodded again to assure that he was listening and put his eyes back on the road.

“I mean, long story short, my stepmom came home and I had a guy over and then I got kicked out.” Mark sounded strangely casual with the words he was saying, it was like they meant nothing to him.

“Wait, you like,” Donghyuck said, glancing at Mark through the corner of his eye, “had a guy over? Like you had him _over_?”

“Yeah,” Mark said with a regretful sort of laugh, “she came home and we were asleep and she kind of put the puzzle pieces together from there. Then she told my dad and things went downhill pretty quickly.”

“So you got kicked out? Like, for good kicked out or kicked out for a couple days?” Donghyuck slowed at the red light ahead of them, sitting still as no cars passed in the opposite direction. “Because my dad gave me a very temporary kicking out a time or two before I moved out.”

“Well, he hit me and told me he’d kill me if I ever came back,” Mark said, shrugging his shoulders, “so that sounded pretty definite to me.”

Donghyuck turned to look at Mark and under the fluorescent red glow of the streetlight, he could see a dark bruise forming under Mark’s eye, right on his cheekbone.

“Christ,” Donghyuck said, squinting to try and see Mark’s face a bit better in the dark. He watched the glow on Mark’s face go from a soft red to an offending green and flinched away quickly back to look at the road. “You don’t have any other family to go to?”

“Nah, my grandparents are no different than my dad, so I can’t really go to them. They’re really the only family I have contact with besides my dad and his wife.” Mark said, his fingers twisting around the seatbelt absentmindedly.

“What about your mom? Got any family on that side?” Donghyuck said, pulling down a sidestreet that made Mark think that they were close to home.

“Oh, no, my-- my mom,” Mark sputtered, not sure how to articulate what he wanted to say, “my mom died when I was 15. So, um, not really an option.”

“Shit, Mark, I didn’t know that,” Donghyuck said, looking over at Mark sympathetically while still fighting to keep his eyes on the road. “Sorry, okay, I said no questions asked. We don’t have to talk about this anymore.”

“I’ve nothing to hide at this point, dude,” Mark let his head fall back against the headrest and looked up at the dark gray ceiling that matched the rest of the car. “Ask anything, I’m an open book.”

“Are you hungry?” Donghyuck asked as they pulled into a driveway, not the type of question that Mark was expecting.

“Yeah, I’m fucking starving,” Mark said as he unbuckled his seatbelt, “but you and I both know that I wasn’t gonna eat shit from that Waffle House.”

“How did you just completely lose your filter in the ten minutes it took us to get here?” Donghyuck laughed. He pulled his key out of the ignition and Mark quickly felt the thick summer air swallow him. “I’d never heard you say a word before tonight, much less anything like that.”

“Like I said,” Mark called as he and Donghyuck stepped out of the car in sync, “nothing to hide anymore. Hiding didn’t work very well, so Plan B is in action.”

“What exactly is Plan B?” Donghyuck said, leaning on the roof of the car to look at Mark.

“Not sure, but if you think of anything good, let me know.”

Mark followed Donghyuck into the house and straight to the kitchen, where they discovered numerous boxes of cereal and not much else. Mark settled on a bowl of Froot Loops after a few minutes of staring blankly at the open pantry. Donghyuck decided he wasn’t in the mood to eat, but he stole three orange Loops from Mark’s bowl after claiming that the different colors of cereal all had different flavors and that the orange ones were definitely the king of the Loops. They stood leaning on their elbows at the kitchen counter, not talking about much but occasionally asking an invasive personal question.

“Why don’t you live with your parents anymore?”

“They don’t like me very much. Do you have, like, life plans?”

“I was hoping to move back to the city, but I don’t have much of a plan after that. Do you think you’re going to die before you get out of this town?”

“I think I’d rather die than die in this town.”

Mark snorted, shoving his bowl back on the table. “That makes no sense whatsoever.”

“You get used to things not making sense after a while,” Donghyuck shrugged. “I’m trying to think of another question.”

“My mom died of a drug overdose,” Mark said. “I figured you didn’t wanna ask so I just decided to tell you.”

“That’s okay.” Donghyuck said. They both retreated into their own minds for a moment, not looking at each other and not thinking about the situation at all. Mark nervously tapped out a beat on the counter until Donghyuck finally broke the silence.

“God, that is obnoxious.”

“What’s obnoxious?” Mark said, continuing to drum his fingers as if he held no power over them. He tilted his head in an attempt to look innocent, a small smirk turning up the corners of his mouth. Donghyuck glared at him for a moment, a little bit of fury in his eyes, but then the sight of Mark’s darkening cheek caught his attention.

“Does your face hurt?” Donghyuck said, approaching Mark slowly to see it more clearly. The purple-black skin faded into a sickly yellow and then into Mark’s soft skin. It was clear that Mark’s father hadn’t hit him lightly, judging by the severity of the bruise only a few hours after its happening.

“What the fuck do you mean, does my face hurt?” Mark said with a laugh, “Is that supposed to be an insult?”

“No, your cheek,” Donghyuck said, reaching out to touch it with the tips of his fingers. When he ran his hand along the bruise, Mark hissed through his teeth and Donghyuck pulled back quickly, afraid to hurt the boy. 

“Well, it doesn’t hurt unless you touch it,” Mark said, turning his face away from Donghyuck. He wasn’t sure how bad it looked, but judging by Donghyuck’s expression, it wasn’t the prettiest of bruises.

“It doesn’t look as bad as you probably think,” Donghyuck said. Mark’s shoulders slumped because he knew that anyone could read his mind just from the expression on his face. “Really, I just couldn’t see it well until we got inside.”

Mark reached up to touch the bruise with his own hand, knowing well that it would hurt but still curious if it would sting the same way as it did the time before. As he began to poke slowly at his sore skin, Donghyuck’s hand moved to meet Mark’s wrist and pull it away from his face. Mark blinked as he noticed how close Donghyuck had gotten to him and how firm the boy’s grasp was on his own wrist, and the next time Mark took a breath, the handle of the fridge was digging into his back and Donghyuck’s hand was tight on his hip and instead of breathing in air he was breathing in the way Donghyuck smelled, no more than an inch from his face.

It dawned on Mark, in that moment, that maybe Donghyuck had been sending him signals over the course of the night.

And suddenly, his head knocked back into the door of the refrigerator as Donghyuck pinned Mark’s body in between his own and the cold metal behind him and kissed Mark like the rest of his life depended on it.

Mark’s hand reached up into the curls on top of Donghyuck’s head and his fingers anchored themselves in the locks to keep his hand from shaking. He could hear his heartbeat in his ears and he could see wild colors behind his eyelids and he fought to get closer and closer to the boy that was already as close to Mark as he could possibly be.

As their mouths parted, the rest of their bodies stayed flush against one another. Mark slowly opened his eyes, not sure of what to expect when he blinked back into reality. And there was Donghyuck, his eyes open and looking at Mark with a warmth that made Mark’s spine tingle, and they breathed in sync for a moment, just like that. Two bodies stuck together through forces far stronger than gravity. 

When Mark felt the tears begin to form in his eyes, it was already too late to fight them back. He let his head fall into Donghyuck’s chest with the same gravity that had held them together only moments before, and Donghyuck stood still, stroking Mark’s back as he felt sobs shake the boy in his arms.

Mark’s body slumped further into Donghyuck. He was exhausted to the point that crying was too much for him and he elected to breathe shakily into Donghyuck’s chest instead. In another time, he may have enjoyed being there with Donghyuck the way that they were. But with all the things running through his mind, Donghyuck’s lips on his never once crossed his thoughts.

Donghyuck pulled Mark back by the shoulders just a bit and tried to look him in the eyes, but the way Mark’s head lulled forward wearily told him everything that he needed to know.

“I’m gonna set you up in my bed for the night, okay?” Donghyuck waited a moment for a response and then accepted that he wasn’t going to get one. “I know I promised you that the couch is comfortable, but it’s actually horrible.” He laughed weakly as he started to guide Mark towards his bedroom.

Mark’s steps backward were slow and small as he still rested himself on Donghyuck’s frame. Donghyuck decided that the easiest way to get Mark across the house would be to pick him up and then decided again that maybe picking Mark up isn’t his most practical idea. Donghyuck reached down with one of his hands and scooted Mark’s leg forward until his foot sat on Donghyuck’s own toes. He then quickly did the same thing with the other foot, feeling awfully ridiculous as he began to walk forward with Mark walking on top of him.

Mark wrapped his arms tighter around Donghyuck’s waist as they turned into the bedroom. A little smile curled onto Donghyuck’s face that he was glad no one else could see and he slowly detached Mark’s body from his own while settling him onto the bed.

“Feel free to, well, get comfortable,” Donghyuck said, reaching down to push Mark’s hair out of his face. “Just yell if you need me, okay? I’ll be out in the living room.” But Mark was already asleep, his eyes scrunched as he curled up on his side. Donghyuck smiled down at the stranger in his bed and turned to walk out of the room, leaving the door open just a little bit.

As Donghyuck settled down on the couch, he thought about the way Mark kissed him in the kitchen for what felt like forever. He then thought about the way Mark cried right afterwards for just as long. He wasn’t used to boys crying after he kissed them, but then again, he wasn’t used to inviting strangers into his house and letting them fall asleep in his bed. There was always a first time for everything, Donghyuck figured, and Mark Lee would definitely take some getting used to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey you! i hope you're enjoying this fic so far :) there's no release schedule or set number of chapters right now, so i suggest bookmarking if you want to keep track of the story's progress!!
> 
> if you haven't noticed, the title of every chapter is a different song! i've just picked songs that i think fit the mood of each chapter and i've started to compile them into a playlist. feel free to listen to the songs as you read to add a bit of trendy indie movie feel to the story. 
> 
> you can always comment below or message me on social media if you have anything to say about the story or if you just wanna talk about markhyuck in general because they both make me very happy! i'm open to criticism because i want to become a better writer with every new update i post. 
> 
> thank you so much for reading <3 i probably won't rant this much at the end of every chapter but i figured a bit of an introduction was called for! see you around!
> 
> -jen


	3. my number - foals

Mark was painfully jolted awake by the sound of a door slamming into the wall behind it, followed by the sound of someone else shushing the door slammer. Mark froze, remembering that he was in a stranger’s house, and pretended to still be asleep. 

He heard someone whisper “one, two!” before all hell broke loose. 

“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you. Happy birthday dear Donghyuck, happy birthday to you!”

Mark rolled over just in time to watch Donghyuck scramble into the room and watched the eyes of the two strangers hovering over him grow wide in confusion.

“Get out,” Donghyuck said, speeding into the room and ushering the two towards the door, “Don’t ask questions, I’ll explain later. Just get out. Go to your room or leave. Give me an hour.”

The two boys shuffled towards the door, the smaller one holding a cake that he offered up to Donghyuck on the way out. Donghyuck smiled weakly and took the cake while the taller boy patted him on the head and scooted past him out of the room. They closed the door on the way out, leaving Donghyuck standing awkwardly while he waited for Mark to react. 

“It’s your birthday?” Mark said, sitting up in bed. Donghyuck nodded with a little smile on his face as he gestured towards the cake with a fancy store-written “Happy Birthday Hyuck!” printed on it. Mark swung his legs off the bed quickly, standing up and searching for his phone and wallet. “I’m so sorry, I had no idea. I’ll go, you can enjoy your birthday. Thank you so much for having me here but I really should go.”

“Hey, wait--fuck, what do I do with this,” Donghyuck fumbled with the cake in his hands, searching frantically around the room with his eyes for a place to set it down. The cake nearly flipped frosting-first to its doom as Donghyuck shoved it into the drawer of his dresser that he had left open the night before. The green frosting had undoubtedly begun to stain his haphazardly folded clothes and ruin the only clean laundry he had, but there were more important matters to Donghyuck at the moment, like the fact that Mark was shoving his shoes on and rushing past him out the door.

“Mark, please, you don’t have to leave,” Donghyuck said as he jogged down the hallway to catch up with Mark. He placed his hand on Mark’s shoulder, firm enough to stop him but gentle enough to let him keep going if he really wanted to. Mark’s feet halted and Donghyuck slipped past him to meet him face to face (and to block the exit to the hallway, a little bit). “We’re just gonna hang out here today, nothing fancy. You can meet my roommates. Consider yourself invited, if that’s what it takes.”

Mark breathed in for what felt like the first time since yesterday and he watched the way Donghyuck’s looked back and forth between his pupils, waiting for an answer. It was Donghyuck’s birthday, which would have meant nothing to Mark if in the back of his mind he hadn’t been looking for a reason to stay. He nodded reluctantly and agreed to stay longer than he originally planned, even though all of his plans up to this point hadn’t worked out.

“You can come out now,” Donghyuck half-yelled down the hallway, and the two boys that had woken Mark up came out of the last doorway only seconds later. One of the two hung back near the door, silently admitting that he was listening the whole time, but the other claimed no guilt and came bounding towards Mark and Donghyuck.

“Where’s the cake? I went to all of that trouble to make you a cake and you don’t even offer me any of it.” The shorter man said and visibly pouted. There was a chuckle from down the hallway as Donghyuck’s other friend approached.

“Ten bought that cake from Walmart,” he said, “and I’m pretty sure they froze it and forgot to defrost it before giving it to us.”

Donghyuck scrunched up his nose in mock disgust. Ten stomped off towards the living room and the other two followed him, so Mark figured he should follow as well. Donghyuck’s friend knocked him towards the wall with his shoulder and Mark laughed quietly to himself. He missed the way that Donghyuck looked back to see if he was coming, too busy smiling at the floor. 

“So, introduce me to your replacement,” Donghyuck’s friend nodded. Donghyuck scoffed, but still brought Mark over to the couch and had him sit while his friends.

“This is Mark,” Donghyuck said, gesturing to the boy who sat uncomfortably in between two of Donghyuck’s friends. “Mark, this is my friend Johnny and his boyfriend, Ten.”

“AM I NOT YOUR FRIEND, LEE DONGHYUCK?” Ten responded immediately, pushing off of Mark’s leg with hand to stand and confront the other boy. “I’ve done nothing but take care of you for, gee I don’t know, three years now and this is how you repay me?”

“He never said you weren’t his friend,” Johnny said, putting his head down into his hand. Ten shot around to shoot him a glare.

“And I never said that this was any of your business,” he said, then turning to look at Mark. “You know, I don’t know why you decided to come here but you may want to rethink your choice because there two are the most  _ insufferable _ \--”   


“Okay, that’s enough,” Donghyuck said, “please don’t scare the boy.”

Mark mumbled something like  _ I’m pretty sure I’m older than you  _ before Ten started pacing back and forth yelling about  _ NO ONE APPRECIATES ME  _ and Donghyuck began to counter-yell that  _ YOU’RE RUINING MY BIRTHDAY  _ and Johnny sat there on his phone scrolling through Twitter because he’s gotten all too good at tuning the two of them out.

“Hey, HEY,” Mark said, eventually getting the two loud roommates to quiet down. “It’s Donghyuck’s birthday, let’s try not to fight.”

“Oh, Mark,” Donghyuck said, walking over to him and ruffling his hair, “that’s really nice of you. Unlike  _ some people _ .”

Johnny stood up to serve as a blockade between Ten and Donghyuck as his boyfriend came bounding towards the boy once again. “How about we all get dressed and go out to breakfast?

Everyone nodded and broke off towards their own rooms to get ready except for Mark, who stood their awkwardly and watched as Donghyuck walked towards his room. 

“Uh, Hyuck? I mean, Donghyuck,” Mark said, unsure about the nickname from the way that Donghyuck froze up when he said it. “I kind of don’t have any other clothes. You know, like, this is all I own.”

“Oh shit,” Donghyuck said, turning and holding up his finger for Mark to stay where he was. He emerged a minute later with some clothes wadded up in his hand. “Here, these will probably fit. And make sure they don’t have any icing stains on them, I forgot that I left the cake in the drawer and it kind of ruined a couple shirts.” Mark watched as he grabbed a trash bag from the kitchen on the way to his room and reemerged with slightly green hands. Donghyuck didn’t know that Mark was watching him as he chuckled quietly to himself.

Mark shut the bathroom door and unfurled the pile of clothes that Donghyuck had shoved into his hands. There sat a grey crewneck and a pair of black jeans that Mark was completely unsure about, judging by the way his own fashion was never anything, well, fashionable. He shrugged out of the old t-shirt he had been wearing when he left yesterday evening and replaces it with the shirt that smells like bar soap and crushed leaves (and Mark assumes that’s probably what Donghyuck smells like, but he hasn’t taken the time to check yet). He sighs thankfully as the pants end up just long enough for his legs and he notices that Donghyuck handed him a pair of socks in the bundle and that from the ankle up they had the image of  _ Starry Night  _ printed on them, quirky but not something that Mark expected out of Donghyuck’s wardrobe. He looked in the mirror and attempted to calm his hair down from where it stuck up in the back, but even getting his hair wet wasn’t enough to flatten it to his head, so he left the bathroom with a sigh to meet up with Donghyuck again.

“Lookin’ good,” Donghyuck said as he watched Mark walk down the hallway. Mark’s hand reached up to scratch the back of his head and he laughed nervously.

“Hey, do you have another hat?” He said, pointing to the white cap fitted backwards on Donghyuck’s head. “My hair isn’t wanting to cooperate.”

“Oh! You can just have this one,” Donghyuck said, pulling the cap off of his head and tossing it in Mark’s direction. Mark fumbled trying to catch the hat, but he was too distracted by the way Donghyuck’s bangs flopped forwards out of the hat and how his hand went up to scatter them across his forehead. The hat landed on the floor and Mark quickly bent down to pick it up as Donghyuck raised an eyebrow at him. Mark plopped the hat on his head and smiled weakly in an attempt to diffuse the situation.

“Oh my God, you look just like Hyuckie,” Ten said as he came up behind Mark, noticing him covered completely in Donghyuck’s clothes. “It suits you.”

“Okay, it’s my birthday, so I’m officially requesting that until midnight tonight you cannot call me  _ Hyuckie _ or any variation of my name that is not Donghyuck.” He stood up at the end of the announcement in order to assert his authority, and Ten opened his mouth to argue but decided that he would concede just this once.

“Alright, fellas,” Johnny said as he entered the room, swinging his keys around his finger, “let’s get going.”

“ _ Fellas _ ,” Donghyuck snorted, only for Johnny to smack the side of his head as he walked towards the door. “And I get to pick where we’re going. Birthday rules.”

“Really? I was thinking Waffle House,” Ten said, and Mark and Donghyuck groaned loud enough to make Ten feel accomplished.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> semi-short chapter but i'm already out here working on the next one so be prepared. thank you for reading and being patient with me as i try to make this story the best it can be! and another song added to the chapter-title playlist, hopefully you like it :)

**Author's Note:**

> come talk to me about markhyuck at any point in time and i will be eternally grateful
> 
> twitter: @hesmarklee  
> tumblr: @izwon  
> curiouscat: /nctdad


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